Of the total nitrate fertilizer used in the US, approximately 30% is lost due to over-application and subsequent seepage into groundwater, volatilization or tiling and runoff. New techniques in irrigation and soil moisture monitoring have provided growers improved data to manage irrigation, allowing for better forecasting and immediate feedback resulting in decreased water costs and optimized management practices.
However, conventional devices or systems that measure ion concentration in soil may have ion interference from other ions outside the target ion being measured. The conventional devices or systems may also have drift problems associated to the inherit material of the sensor, or in particular for environmental applications, suffer from deviations in measurement due to turbidity in the sample or other heterogeneous conditions or contaminants. Such interference and drift cause errors during signal processing and lead to the devices or systems reporting inaccurate values.
Accordingly, a need remains for improved devices, systems, and methods for increasing the accuracy of ion concentration measurement in non-laboratory settings. Embodiments of the invention address these and other limitations in the prior art.
The foregoing and other features of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.